Where Liberalism Is Alive and Well!

Day: February 14, 2011

I absolutely loved this post by Matt Osborne at Osborne Ink about Bradley Manning’s detention for his admitted leaking of military documents. My favorite parts of Matt’s post follow…

Manning has not been convicted — yet — but there is nothing especially harsh or unusual about his conditions. The Rosenbergs were isolated. Aldrich Ames was isolated. There is no “plan” to drive Bradley Manning insane. He’s a prisoner accused of giving away his country’s secrets. Such prisoners are held in solitary confinement as standard counterintelligence protocol. Who wants a caught spy to tell the other side what you have sweated out of him in the interrogation room? Who wants him to be free to do more damage?

[…]

Giving away American secrets is against the law; the penalties are stiff. Manning knew that, but chose to give secrets away — and then got caught by bragging about it to strangers on the internet. That there are no other prisoners in Quantico accused of espionage is a happy accident: most American service members take their oaths as seriously as I did, and do. Manning didn’t. A justice system will adjudicate what that means, not Glenn Greenwald.

And finally, if you haven’t read Lawrence Wright’s piece in the New Yorker about Scientology (The Apostate), I highly recommend it. It is a long piece, so set aside some time or plan to read it in multiple sessions. I’ve personally been fascinated by the cult of scientology and in particular, it’s appeal to celebrities. This piece sheds a lot of light on the situation. I’ve thought for years about doing a documentary on the Church of Scientology and may still do it, but I have reservations because of their ways. Read the piece and you will know what I mean.